Philadelphia Eagles: Rookie comes up short in place of injured Vick

Eagles rookie Nick Foles wasn’t awful taking over for the concussed Michael Vick in a dizzying 38-23 loss to the Dallas Cowboys at Lincoln Financial Field. But Foles gave up points faster than he got them.

Preceding those touchdowns was a 78-yard punt return by Dwayne Carr, who motored down the sideline so quickly you wondered if he might be related to “Bullet” Bob Hayes.

In spite of Foles giving the Eagles a 17-10 third-quarter lead via a 44-yard touchdown throw to Jeremy Maclin and spearheading a drive setting up a 40-yard Alex Henery field goal, when it was all said and done this was another typical Eagles, Andy Reid loss.

The quarterback apologized for bad turnovers, coaches and players were upset with the tackling and, special teams was a liability.

Standing in the wreckage of his first five-game losing streak Reid was asked if he believed the Eagles (3-6) still were playoff material.

“Absolutely, yeah” Reid said. “I mean, you don’t know in this league. So you keep battling. That’s what you do.”

Until further notice, Foles will do the battling at quarterback. Foles had his moments. He got a standing ovation taking the field after Vick, off to a great start, exited with a concussion early in the second quarter.

Foles completed 22 of 32 attempts for 219 yards. But he was so bad on third down, going 0-for-7, that you wanted to criticize Reid for not keeping three quarterbacks active, veteran Trent Edwards the other guy.

“Not good enough to win,” Foles assessed his play. “I made some mistakes. I can’t turn the ball over and that’s the most important thing to win games. I turned it over twice and they ended up being touchdowns. But that’s a learning experience. I’m going to learn from it and get better.”

Even with the uncertainty of the new NFL, this is no time to learn.

The Eagles blew a golden opportunity to jump back into the NFC East race as the New York Giants (6-4) were pulverized by the Cincinnati Bengals.

Defensively the Eagles improved. They limited the Cowboys to 294 yards, although 101 were on the ground.

For the Cowboys (4-5), Tony Romo completed 19 of 26 attempts for 209 yards, two touchdowns, a 122.1 rating and the backbreaking play.

On third-and-five at the Dallas 39, Romo took off on one of those patented scrambles where everyone gets a hand on him but no one tackles him. Jason Babin and Brandon Graham were the last bodies to fly helplessly away as Romo completed a 25-yard pass to Miles Austin.

It continued a TD drive capped by a 30-yard throw to a sprawling Dez Bryant that knotted the score and ignited a flurry in which the Cowboys scored three touchdowns in a span of 2-minutes, 35-seconds.

“We had them in third-and-four, missed him about three or four times in the backfield and he made a play,” defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. “I think the game changed at that point. When they tied it up we were still in the ballgame but everything else just fell apart.”

The punt return gave the Cowboys the lead. DeSean Jackson helped Carr by juggling a Foles pass and giving way when linebacker Ernie Sims entered the frame. That score produced a 31-17 bulge with 12:25 to go.

Foles marched the Eagles 77 yards, the drive capped by Stanley Havili’s one-yard run, to at least give the Eagles hope. Henery missed his first PAT after the score and the Eagles failed to recover the onside kick.

Foles, throwing out of his end zone was sacked by Anthony Spencer, Hatcher recovering with 46 ticks left to produce the final score.

“In a very short time there we went from getting the lead to being behind by a couple of touchdowns,” the flabbergasted Reid said. “Between the special teams and a couple of big plays on defense, we’ve got to do a better job there, and figure it out.”

Vick marched the Eagles 81 yards for a score on their first possession, completing four of five attempts for 59 yards. Vick ended it with a two-yard lob to Riley Cooper, who cupped the ball in his left arm, pulled it

in and dotted the I’s before getting shoved out of bounds.

Vick completed six of nine attempts for 70 yards and a 127.1 passer rating.

Romo, who threw for 209 yards and two touchdowns, responded by dinking-and-dunking the Cowboys 80 yards in 13 plays to knot the score. The longest completion was 13 yards. Felix Jones finished it with an 11-yard run as the Cowboys had nine rushes for 61 yards on the possession.